Ohio History Journal

edited by

MARVIN R. ZAHNISER

John W. Bricker Reflects Upon the

Fight for the Bricker Amendment

John W. Bricker, long a prominent name in the politics of Ohio and

the United States, will forever be known to students of American his-

tory as the author of a proposed amendment to the Constitution.¹ Pop-

ularly called the Bricker Amendment, this Senate Joint Resolution was

first introduced on September 14, 1951, as Senate Joint Resolution 102.

Following extensive consultation, Senate hearings, and much national

publicity, the proposed Amendment was presented to the Senate for a

climactic vote on February 26, 1954. The version most widely debated

within the Senate had the following three major sections:

Section 1: A provision of a treaty which conflicts with this Consti-

tution shall not be of any force or effect.

Section 2: A treaty shall become effective as internal law in the

United States only through legislation which would be valid in the

absence of a treaty.

Section 3: Congress shall have power to regulate all executive and

other agreements with any foreign power or international organization.

All such agreements shall be subject to the limitations imposed on

treaties by this article.

There have been various interpretations suggesting why the Bricker

Amendment was proposed. Most analysts concur that the executive

agreements concluded by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second

Marvin R. Zahniser is Professor of History at The Ohio State University. He wishes

to thank Professor Joseph May of Youngstown State University for sharing his wide

knowledge of the background to the Bricker Amendment.

1. Mr. Bricker served as Ohio's Assistant Attorney General, 1923-1927; as Attorney

General, 1933 1937; and as Governor from 1939-1945. In 1944 he was Thomas E.

Dewey's vice-presidential running mate on the losing Republican ticket. He was elected

Senator from Ohio in 1946, which position he held until 1958 when he was defeated by

Democrat Stephen M. Young. Mr. Bricker is presently senior partner in the Columbus,

Ohio, law firm of Bricker, Evatt, Barton & Eckler. Mr. Frank E. Holman, Seattle attor-

ney and past president of the American Bar Association, must likewise be recognized

as a major architect of the Bricker Amendment. A short but stimulating discussion

over the fight for adoption of the Bricker Amendment is found in Herbert S. Parmet,

Eisenhower and the American Crusades (New York, 1972), 305-13.

Bricker Amendment                                            323

World War deeply alarmed constitutional conservatives. They per-

ceived that power to conclude such agreements, particularly when they

were sustained as valid by the United States Supreme Court, gave to

the presidency enormous and dangerous powers that were not assigned

in the Federal Constitution.

Alarm about the widening powers of the presidency had, of course,

matured during the 1930s when President Franklin Roosevelt had been

given great latitude by Democratic congresses to direct far-ranging

programs. Fears that Roosevelt might misuse the expanding powers of

his office were confirmed, conservatives insisted, when one examined

the wartime agreements such as those the president negotiated at the

Yalta Conference. Clearly, conservatives argued, it was time that some

fundamental action be taken to check the power of the presidency to

conclude executive agreements, especially regarding their effects on

domestic law at the national and state levels.

As Senator Bricker makes clear in the following speech, there was

also genuine concern in postwar America about the United Nations and

the extent to which American national life, institutions, and the per-

sonal rights and liberties of its citizens might be reshaped by the United

Nations. In the climate of postwar anxiety, anger with Roosevelt over

wartime executive agreements that had been concluded, unhappiness

over rulings by the Supreme Court that sanctioned wide use of such

agreements, President Harry Truman's decision to commit troops to Korea

without prior congressional approval, and fears about the role of the

Soviet Union and her client states within the United Nations, it is

understandable why conservatives determined to take steps to restrict

to traditional limits presidential initiative in foreign affairs and judicial

interpretation of its scope.

With this brief background, it is interesting to note the setting in

which Senator Bricker placed his proposed Amendment when speaking

on August 13, 1976, to a convention of foreign policy historians meeting

in Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Bricker does not, as one might expect, place

emphasis upon the cause celebre of wartime executive agreements. Nor

does he even mention the names of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his

wife Eleanor, one the negotiator of executive agreements, the other

active in United Nations affairs. Instead, Mr. Bricker takes the high

ground that the Constitution was being subverted by a variety of insti-

tutions. In his arguments he points to decisions by the Supreme Court,

going back to 1920, that sanctioned ever wider scope for the exercise

of presidential initiative in foreign affairs. These rulings he found truly

alarming as he did efforts by United Nations commissions to establish

bodies having international executive and juridical authority. As for

the presidency, Senator Bricker and his colleagues believed the powers

324                                               OHIO HISTORY

of the executive in foreign affairs had grown so dramatically that pru-

dence urged some step be taken to define, and perhaps circumscribe,

those powers.

Students of the 1950s will find Senator Bricker's brief roll call of

those playing an influential opposing role to the amendment an inter-

esting one. There is Dwight D. Eisenhower, at first apparently supportive

of the Amendment, unduly influenced in midstream by John J.

McCloy, and in the last stages of the fight openly opposing adoption of

the Amendment. Mr. Bricker clearly believes that Eisenhower acted

unconstitutionally in intervening to prevent Senate approval of the pro-

posed amendment.

John Foster Dulles appears in this account as an ambitious syco-

phant, shifting his position in keeping with prevailing White House

winds and the opinions of east coast Republicans. Dulles, charges

Bricker, never changed his mind about the dangers of treaty law, only

his public stance. In this interpretation of a shifty and devious

Dulles, Senator Bricker is in step with several major interpretations of

Dulles as politician and diplomat.

Many constitutional historians may not agree with Senator Bricker's

sweeping statement concerning interpretation of the Constitution since

1920. Neither are historians of the Eisenhower era likely to agree fully

to his view about the key role of John J. McCloy in leading Eisenhower

to oppose the Amendment. Most certainly, many will disagree with

Senator Bricker's contention that the Amendment, if adopted in a form

acceptable to him, would not have unduly hampered the presidency in

the area of foreign affairs. Whichever side one takes on the issues

addressed by the Bricker Amendment, it seems clear that the central

concern of presidential discretion in conducting foreign relations is not

a dead one.

The following is an after-dinner speech by Senator Bricker. By no

means was the speech intended as his definitive defense of the Bricker

Amendment. Rather, the presentation was designed to be brief, full of

personal anecdote, and to present Mr. Bricker's more vivid impressions

of the roles played by some major figures in the amendment fight and of

the issues that stimulated him to propose the Bricker Amendment.

*    *    *

It is very difficult in a short time to completely encompass the meaning

of the so-called Bricker Amendment which was submitted to the Senate

some twenty-five years ago. However, there is still a deep interest in it.

I receive letters every week from students and teachers all over the

country in regard to the Amendment and its meaning. Several senators

have talked to me about reviving interest in it and I have told them that

326                                                           OHIO HISTORY

checks and balances, prevailed throughout the drafting of the Consti-

tution. As historians will remember, Alexander Hamilton opposed

adoption of the Bill of Rights on the basis that it was not necessary to

prohibit from the Federal government the powers not authorized in the

Constitution itself. Thomas Jefferson held to the contrary position that

it was necessary to have a Bill of Rights to protect the American people

from the invasion of their rights under the new Constitution. It was also

necessary to adopt the Bill of Rights in order to get ratification of the

Constitution itself. Both Jefferson and Hamilton did agree, however,

that Article VI [above quoted] did not give power under treaty to

annul any of the provisions of the Constitution or the rights of the

States. For 125 years the Supreme Court also held to that theory.

Then came a relatively unimportant ease known as Missouri vs.

Holland which held that the powers of the state could by treaty be

transferred to the Federal Government. That ruling by the Supreme

Court did not create a great deal of debate or confusion in the public

since the only question involved was the control of migratory birds.²

Subsequently in the Pink case from New York, which arose over an

executive agreement by the passing of two letters between Maxim

Litvinof of Russia and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, certain laws of

the state of New York were completely nullified and the powers of

individuals under the Fifth Amendment were nullified by denying the

true owners of an insurance company, licensed in New York, due pro-

cess of law. The owners' property was taken by the Federal government

without just compensation.³

2. In the State of Missouri v. Holland (252 U.S. 416), 1920, Missouri contested the

constitutionality of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, a statute passed by

Congress in pursuance of the Migratory Bird Treaty of August 16, 1916, a treaty con-

cluded between the United States and Great Britain. Missouri argued that the statute

invaded the sovereign rights reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment and

was therefore unconstitutional.

Speaking for the Court, Mr. Justice Holmes concluded that the Tenth Amendment

was not violated by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or by the treaty upon which the

statute was based. The power to conclude treaties on matters of proper national concern

had been delegated to the Federal government by the Constitution. The treaty itself

had been duly negotiated and ratified. Furthermore, said Holmes, "a national interest

of very nearly the first magnitude is involved. It can be protected only by national ac-

tion in concert with another power. The subject matter is only transitorily within the

State and has no permanent habitat there. . . . We see nothing in the Constitution that

compels the Government to sit by while a food supply is cut off and the protectors of our

forests and our crops are destroyed."

Constitutional historians do not believe that a careful reading of the decision lends

support to Senator Bricker's contention that Missouri v. Holland "held that the powers

of the state could by treaty be transferred to the Federal Government." See Louis Hen-

kin, Foreign Affairs and the Constitution (Mineola, NY, 1972), 143-48.

3. United States v. Pink (315 U.S. 203), opinion of the Court rendered on February

2, 1942, by Mr. Justice Douglas. This case involved an action by the United States

Bricker Amendment                                                         327

With the creation of the United Nations and our support and adher-

ence to it, a new problem arose. It was no doubt the intent of many that

establishment of the United Nations marked the beginning of World

Government in which the United States would be a participant and

subject to the orders, the legislation, and the directives of the United

Nations. However, there was written into the charter of the United

Nations a provision that it should not interfere with the domestic

rights of the participating states. Had it not been for that provision, I

am confident that the original charter of the United Nations would not

have been ratified as a treaty by the United States.

No sooner though had the organization been set up than the One

World movement began efforts to superimpose the power of the United

Nations upon the participants. Motions were made in the Senate of the

United States to call a Constitutional Convention for One World Gov-

ernment. Books were written about it. Wendell Willkie's book, One

World, was characteristic of the viewpoint. Opposition arose to the

One World program and it seemed impossible to get it through the

Congress of the United States.

Adherents of the one world philosophy then tried another approach

to achieve their goal. The various bodies of the United Nations imme-

diately began drafting treaties for submission to the membership.

There were some two hundred of them under preparation when you

consider the ones in the International Labor Organization to which the

United States was a party. Two of the outstanding treaties that were

to be proposed were the Covenant of Human Rights which, briefly,

would have deprived the United States of its power in many respects

against Louis H. Pink, Superintendent of Insurance of the State of New York, et al., to

recover the remaining assets of the New York branch of the First Russian Insurance

Company. The Court took the general position that state law must yield when it is incon-

sistent with the provisions of a treaty or an international compact or agreement that is

properly drawn and within the power of the executive to negotiate. This decision was

consistent with the landmark Belmont decision. See United States v. Belmont et al. (301

U.S. 324), 1937. Speaking for the Court, Mr. Justice Sutherland stated: ". . . in respect

of all international negotiations and compacts, and in respect of our foreign relations gen-

erally, state lines disappear .... Within the field of its powers, whatever the United

States rightfully undertakes, it necessarily has warrant to consummate. And when

judicial authority is invoked in aid of such consummation, State Constitutions, state

laws, and state policies are irrelevant to the inquiry and decision. It is inconceivable

that any of them can be interposed as an obstacle to the effective operation of a federal

constitutional power."

When Belmont and Pink were read in the light of Missouri v. Holland, as well as the

landmark U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (299 U.S. 304), 1936, it appeared to

Mr. Bricker and his supporters that the president had the power to make executive

agreements, almost without regard to constitutional authorization or restraint. Others

believed a fairer statement might be that the Court, through these decisions, left ample

room for expansion of presidential power to make treaties and executive agreements

that might override state laws in some instances.

328                                                         OHIO HISTORY

and which would have permitted freedom of speech, the press, and

non-interference in religious matters to be nullified by law of the coun-

try. If accepted, Congress could by law modify, qualify, and really annul

the provisions of the Bill of Rights.⁴

A second proposed agreement was the Genocide Convention which

is so obtuse and indefinable in its wording that any decision on it could

not very well be made. The United States representative at the United

Nations had signed the Genocide Treaty and recommended that it be

adopted as a treaty. The treaty makes genocide an international

crime defined as including: (A) killing, causing serious bodily or mental

harm; (B) imposing methods intended to prevent births with the intent

to destroy wholly or in part any group. Those violating the treaty could

be tried in the country where the charge was filed or in an Inter-

national Court to be created where all the protecting provisions of the

United States Constitution would be as naught.

The United States representative on this matter tried to insert into

the Convention the implication that governments themselves could be

called to account on genocide charges. Russia and its friends opposed

it and it was turned down. So the treaty, as proposed, would apply to

individuals or groups of individuals while governments were free to do

what they wanted to do in this field. The purpose of the treaty, of

course, was to prohibit genocide such as Hitler carried out in Germany

and which was also being carried out by the communist government in

Russia against racial minorities.⁵ But we were left with the vague

definition of genocide and the potential threat that our rights under the

Constitution would be annulled.

The intent of the treaties to be presented was first made public by Mr.

John P. Humphrey, the first Director of the Commission on Human

4. Mr. Bricker's concern extended beyond constitutional questions. In a speech de-

livered on April 22, 1952, Senator Bricker warned: "Having failed to win approval for

socialism in domestic legislation, enemies of the free enterprise system are turning to

treaties and executive agreements. Most of these treaties originate in the United Na-

tions. . . . Our present tax rates are dangerously near the Marxian level. . . . Inter-

national socialism, like its domestic counterpart, requires permanent legislation vesting

broad powers in a centralized authority. The United Nations is attempting to prepare a

blueprint for world socialism . . " Quoted in William O. Walker, "John W. Bricker

and Joseph R. McCarthy: The Cold War at Home and Abroad, 1950-1954" (M.A. thesis,

The Ohio State University, 1968), 91-92. Senator Bricker and colleagues who opposed

United States adherence to various United Nations statements supporting human rights

were successful. See "U.S. Policy on Human Rights," U.S. Department of State Bulle-

tin, XXVIII, 579-80.

5. See "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948" in A

Survey of Treaty Provisions for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, 1949-

1962 (New York, 1966), 521 22.

Bricker Amendment                                                  329

Rights, who said:

What the United Nations is trying to do is revolutionary in character. Human

rights are largely a matter of relationship between the State and individuals,

and therefore a matter which has been traditionally regarded as being within

the domestic jurisdiction of states. What is now being proposed is, in effect, the

creation of some supernational supervision of this relationship . . .  6

It will be noted that there have already been several charges of geno-

cide filed against the United States in the United Nations. Of course,

nothing came of them. During Mr. Truman's term as president, neither

the Genocide Convention or treaty nor the Human Rights Convention

was approved by the Senate or by two-thirds of those present and

voting. Nevertheless, such treaty efforts caused widespread concern

within the United States that the rights of our citizens might be denied

through treaty or by executive agreements.

Some of these issues were addressed on April 11, 1952, by Mr. John

Foster Dulles, later to be Secretary of State under President Eisen-

hower, in a speech before a regional meeting of the American Bar

Association at Louisville, Kentucky. Particularly interesting to me was

the following statement:

The treaty-making power is an extraordinary power, liable to abuse. Treaties

make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Consti-

tution, Treaties become the supreme law of the land. They are, indeed, more

supreme than ordinary laws, for Congressional laws are invalid if they do not

conform to the Constitution, whereas Treaty law can override the Constitution.

Treaties, for example, can take powers away from the Congress and give them

to the president; they can take powers from the States and give them to the Fed-

eral government or to some international body, and they can cut across the

rights given the people by their Constitutional Bill of Rights.

Subsequent to that speech, in the period before the time that Mr.

Eisenhower was elected president, Mr. Dulles voluntarily came to my

office and discussed with me the grave dangers of treaty law and sug-

gested that something be done about it to protect the American people

in their form of government and in their individual rights. That was

after the first draft of the proposed Bricker Amendment was filed as a

Joint Resolution in the Senate.

I discussed the Amendment with General Eisenhower during the presi-

dential campaign of 1952. Immediately following the election he

seemed very favorable to it. But before the inauguration of President

Eisenhower, and after Mr. Dulles was known to be the incoming Sec-

6. It was called to the editor's attention that Mr. Humphrey used the word "suprana-

tional" not "supernational" as quoted by Senator Bricker. This misquotation was a com-

mon one in the literature supporting adoption of the Bricker Amendment.

330                                                OHIO HISTORY

retary of State, Mr. Dulles called me from New York and asked me not

to file the Amendment at the upcoming Senate session. I told him that

I had talked to him about it earlier, was in full agreement with what he

said about the dangers of treaty law at Louisville, and that I believed

the Amendment necessary then as I believe it is now and that I was

going to refile it at the opening session of the Senate. Then came the

hearings before the Senate (although there had been an extensive

record of hearings made under the Truman Administration) in which

Mr. Dulles and Mr. Herbert Brownell, as Attorney General, made cer-

tain objections to the Amendment. Never at any time did Mr. Dulles

reverse his thinking of the speech at Louisville as far as the testimony

was concerned.

Soon after President Eisenhower came to power he called various

members of the Senate to his office to consult on matters of importance,

in his judgment, that would be met in the first year of his administra-

tion. He brought up what was known as Senate Joint Resolution #1 at

that time, which would limit the power of treaties and executive agree-

ments as domestic law and I explained the Resolution as thoroughly as

I possibly could in the time we had. There were four other Senators

present and President Eisenhower said as I left: "I will put my sword

and sidearms on for that because it is good constitutional law and it is

in the Resolutions of the Republican Convention," meaning the Repub-

lican party platform.

There had been some difference between the Resolution of the

American Bar Association and my own Amendment. The Resolution of

the American Bar contained a "which" clause not in my first draft, a

clause I did not think was necessary and do not yet. But the Committee

of the American Bar which had worked so diligently on this matter

insisted upon it and I agreed to include it because I thought it was not

important, one way or the other.⁷ I did cover the matter of Executive

Agreements in my amendment, which the American Bar had not

included originally, but that was agreed to also. There was great feel-

ing among the lawyers of the country on the proposed Amendment,

and the educational program lasted for a number of years. Finally,

there was definite support by truly a cross section of the people of our

country. Among those who supported it were the American Legion,

Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chamber of Commerce of the United States,

American Farm Bureau Federation, National Association of Evangelicals,

American Medical Association, and the National Small Business As-

7. See p. 1 of this article, "Section 2." Mr. Bricker's original version in 1953 read:

"A treaty shall become effective as internal law only through the enactment of appro-

priate legislation by the Congress."

Bricker Amendment                                                    331

sociation.⁸ Among those who opposed the Amendment were Americans

for Democratic Action, American Jewish Congress, American Federa-

tion of Labor, and the United World Federalists.⁹ I should add that

those who supported the Amendment included many state legislatures,

every American state bar which considered it, although not the New

York City Bar. Many organizations were especially created throughout

the various states during the consideration of the Amendment and at

one time we received in support petitions signed by 400,000 people.

At one time during a conference I held with President Eisenhower, he

said, "If this [proposed Amendment] takes away the power of the

President in treaty-making, I shall oppose it." I replied that if George

Washington had taken the same attitude, there would have been no

Bill of Rights. At no time before this, to my knowledge, did a president

of the United States interfere with the consideration of a Constitutional

Amendment. Mr. Eisenhower's opposition only came toward the last

of the considerations thereof, although there was much maneuvering by

subordinates of the president to prevent its consideration and to get

nullifying amendments.

In January 1954 a night letter was sent to the president by John J.

McCloy of New York, who, with John W. Davis and others, was very

active in opposition, insinuating that the proposed Amendment would

harmfully limit the power of the president. It is a rather indefinite

statement but Mr. McCloy says in this letter that he has studied the

Amendment thoroughly, but his later statements belie that fact. The

president answered on January 13 thanking him and said that a long

study had been made by his associates and himself of this matter. He

even proposed an amendment, he said, which would do part of the

things that my Amendment provided (the so-called Knowland Amend-

ment) but saying that he fully shared the belief that no amendment was

necessary. Mr. Eisenhower never made such a statement to me at any

time until after the letter was received from Mr. McCloy. Mr. Eisen-

hower then had one of his Cabinet members tell me about it. On

8. Senator Bricker also listed the following supportive organizations: Marine Corps

League; Military Order of the World Wars; United Spanish War Veterans; Catholic

War Veterans; Kiwanis International; National Grange; National Defense League of

America; National Society, Sons of the American Revolution; National Society, Daugh-

ters of the American Revolution; Colonial Dames of America; National Association of

Pro America; National Society for Constitutional Security; American Flag Committee;

Steuben Society of America; Conference of State Manufacturers' Association; South-

ern States Industrial Council; National Labor-Management Council on Foreign Trade

Policy; National Association of Real Estate Boards; Freedom Clubs, Inc.; American

Progress Foundation.

9. Also mentioned by Senator Bricker were: B'nai B'rith; American Association for

the United Nations; American Civil Liberties Union; American Association of Univer-

sity Women.

332                                                         OHIO HISTORY

January 18 Mr. McCloy wrote the president a five-page letter in

which he did not discuss the Amendment, but at length tried to con-

vince the president that passage of the Amendment would be a reflec-

tion upon his position in the United States among the nations and

leaders of the world. Evidently Mr. McCloy was a good psychologist.¹⁰

Remember in your considerations that only five countries make

treaties the domestic law. The only one of relative importance in the

whole list is France. In all other countries it takes domestic law to make

a treaty effective within the country. Under my proposed Amendment,

it would have become mandatory that treaty provisions, including

executive agreements, only become effective if their terms were

constitutional.

At one time a man, who shall remain unnamed, was hired by Sec-

retary Dulles to spend his time in opposing the Amendment. This man

subsequently said in a conference which I attended that if this Amend-

ment passed, we could not enter into a treaty of friendship and com-

merce with any nation. I immediately told him that either he did not

know what the Amendment proposed or that, if he did, he knew very

well that it would not interfere with such treaties. He made no answer.

In the midst of the fight over the Amendment, George Humphrey,

Secretary of the Treasury, once called me to his office and told me that

the president had decided to go all out in opposition to the Amendment.

Under the Constitution, as I said earlier, the president has no rightful

function in considering proposed constitutional amendments. But Mr.

Eisenhower began a lobbying process among those who had originally

signed the Amendment and intended to vote for it.11 Humphrey sug-

gested I meet at lunch with him and the Secretary of State, which I

did. I then asked Mr. Dulles if there were provisions or state laws that

he wished to annul or wipe out by treaty and he said, "None." I asked

if he still believed what he said at Louisville and he said he did. I said,

10. John J. McCloy, a personal friend of Mr. Eisenhower, had served as Assistant

Secretary of War, 1941-1945; President of the World Bank, 1947-49; and as United

States Military Governor and High Commissioner for Germany, 1946-49. John W

Davis, New York lawyer, had been the Democratic party's presidential candidate in

1924. Copies of McCloy's night letter to Eisenhower of January 8, 1954; Eisenhower's

response to McCloy on January 13, 1954; and McCloy's longer analysis, dated January

18, 1954, are in Senator Bricker's personal papers in Columbus, Ohio. Senator Bricker

kindly made these letters available to the editor. McCloy's letter of January 18 is a pow-

erful summary of the arguments used by those opposed to the Amendment.

11. Senator Bricker tried to neutralize Eisenhower's lobbying when he said on the

Senate floor: "The fact remains . . . that the President has no Constitutional role in

the amending process. I hope that the President will not be persuaded to try to trans-

form a great Constitutional issue into a personal one." Congressional Record, 83rd

Congress, 2nd session (January 22, 1954), 637.

Bricker Amendment                                                     333

"You write it then," and his only answer was, "I don't have the time."¹²

So then the campaign became open and on the day of the vote the

president had three lobbyists in the Senate cloakroom, two of whom

told me that they approved of the Amendment but had to follow

directions. I think they changed but few votes. The president himself

had already done that. However, one senator voted for the Amendment

who had not even signed the original draft because of the attempted

interference by the president.¹³

I need only say that at the present time there is pending before the

Senate of the United States a genocide treaty called up by President

Nixon during his last campaign. It has been reported to the Senate but

I do not believe that there will be any action on it soon. Such treaties

underline that an amendment similar to the one I drafted and submitted

almost twenty-five years ago is needed now as much as ever.

The opposition to the Bricker Amendment was demagogic and for

the most part rested upon unfounded fears. Oftentimes the opposition

came from those who had no comprehension either of the Holland or

the Pink case or the constitutional issues involved.

I do not believe that anyone who switched his vote was ever

reelected, and the Amendment was an issue in many of those elections.

Most of my Senate colleagues involved in the fight over the Amend-

ment are now gone.

Every lawyer, every member of Congress and the president himself

takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United

States. But the Bricker Amendment, or a similar amendment, is the

only way that we can protect ourselves from the disastrous results of

the assumption of power by the Supreme Court to annul over 125 years

of our experience. Out of our historical experience was laid the founda-

tion of the greatest self-governing Nation of free people of all time. We

dare not let it be destroyed by the fuzzy-thinking One Worlders.

12. "You write it then" was Senator Bricker's invitation to Secretary of State Dulles

to draft an amendment that was in keeping with Dulles' stated convictions and ac-

ceptable to the Eisenhower Administration.

13. In late February 1954, the decisive vote on the Amendment was taken. Senator

Walter F. George of Georgia had submitted his compromise version of the Amendment.

The Amendment was defeated by one vote, sixty yeas to thirty-one nays. See Journal of

the Senate, 82nd Congress, 2nd session, February 26, 1954, 159. Even if approved by

the Senate the Amendment would have had to be endorsed by three-fourths of the states

within a seven-year period.

Senator Eugene Milliken of Colorado, although not an original sponsor of the Amend-

ment, voted for it, Senator Bricker believes, in protest against Eisenhower's lobbying.

For another view of the presidential influence on the final vote, see Gary W. Reich-

ard, The Reaffirmation of Republicanism (Knoxville, 1975), 66-68.